


hit me with lightning; maybe i'll come alive

by faguettenoodles



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied Relationships, M/M, Other, Period-Typical Homophobia, i hope it hurts to read this, i like angst okay, it hurts writing this, it's all in nicos head oops, shock therapy, the gods arent real
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-04 07:36:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15836727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faguettenoodles/pseuds/faguettenoodles
Summary: everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die;i can fear death no longer I've died a  thousand times.alternatively: in which nico is admitted to an asylum and has some pretty heartbreaking revelations.





	hit me with lightning; maybe i'll come alive

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE BE WARNED:  
> implied electro-shock conversion therapy  
> this is an asylum au
> 
> please read at your own risk

He figured if Hell were real, it'd be this fucking asylum in Venice; if anything, it was this godforsaken city in this war-ridden excuse of a country. He wished he could get away from here- _god_  he wished he could just...melt into the shadows and disappear from this hellish place. Away from the doctors, and the medications, and the conversion therapy he knew he  _didn't need._ Just wake up in the middle of the night, take his sister by the hand, and sink into the darkness that enveloped his room. Maybe he'd go to Greece. Or New York City, all the way in the United States. If he tried hard enough, he could almost imagine what freedom tasted like. 

If he tried just enough, maybe he could actually feel it on his skin one day. 

 _Saint Dymphna ospedale per la mentalmente sfidato_ wasn't always...the best place in Venice. When they were younger, Nico and his sister Bianca were warned never to enter-for they would never return the same. "That place is for troubled people," their mother would always say. Now that Nico was admitted, he had begun to believe why Venetians spread such rumours. 

Because they were true. 

The outer part of the hospital alone was the actual worst, but the inside...the inside held secrets no man should ever bare witness to. Despite the cause of the hospital being rehabilitation for the mentally ill, the facility was-well to say the least, the facility was literal shit.

Nico figured the halls of this massive asylum were once as great as ruins of an ancient town, but he just couldn't bring himself to believe that. Patient excrement littered the floors and rooms, and if one wasn't careful enough, they would step in such puddles. The hospital was severely understaffed and underfunded, leaving positions as vacant as the towns raided after bombings. Food was scarce, as the asylum was also turned into a general hospital, and rations needed to be shared amongst too many miserable people. Clean water was almost like a dream to the unfortunate patients who received it last; luckily, Nico wasn't one of those unfortunate souls. There seemed to be no shortage of fear though. 

When the war struck their part of Italy, Nico and his sister Bianca were sent to live with their stepfather. 

It was then that his hallucinations began. 

* * *

 

Every morning there was a routine; and every night, Nico dreaded waking up the next day. His schedule, however, was vastly different from the other patients' routines. His included too many therapies for a fourteen year old-sessions he knew he didn't need. He just wished he would be left alone for one goddamn minute. Was peace and freedom even valued in this fucking place? 

He was to attend therapy every morning before breakfast. Sessions where he talked to a man for an hour and a half who was scarily into his problems; if that wasn't enough, Nico had  _more_ therapy to attend after lunch. This time though, he would be escorted to a room in the furnished basement of the hospital for his...treatment. Only it made him feel worse about himself, rather than fix his "insecurity."

 Every day he left that room a little more withdrawn. 

Every day he drew a little more away from the world that so foolishly cursed him. 

There was, however, a perk to being a nurse's brother. 

His sister Bianca worked as the head nurse in the hospital; her job was to maintain some sort of order with the unruly patients and their overly stressed doctors. Ironically though, she had no control over Nico's doctors. He was their own special little case. Was that supposed to be flattering to him? He was unsure. 

Nico would sometimes get more food than usual, which he often didn't complain about. He was already smaller than he should have been for a thirteen year old, and his "treatments" weren't exactly helping that case. Bianca would often sneak him small glass bottles filled with fresh water when she was able to. 

In short, Nico lived way better than the other patients. Generally, at least. 

When the moon rose, and the distant sound of bombs went to sleep, Nico found himself lying awake. His hallucinations weren't what kept him awake, no; rather, he often remained awake to dream of a better life. 

Of the life he was convinced he had somewhere else, in a time unlike this one. A small part of him, in the back of his mind, had a feeling he was wrong about it all. But still...

Still. 

The life he thought he had would one day reach out to him. Stick its hand through the muddy darkness and pull him up the same way he was sure he had done to save his friends. It was as if, in their place, he was falling into the depths of eternal darkness. Maybe he really was in that pit, wandering aimlessly to find a way out. 

Maybe the life he had in war ridden Venice was the fake. He sure hoped it was. 

Nico never told Bianca much about this other life of his; the way she would look at him made him feel like he was a filthy liar--like it was another one of those imaginary tales a toddler told you. 

He told her about the boy from that life. About how his smile was like the sun. The colour of his hair, his eyes, his skin. The freckles that were scattered almost expertly across his nose, cheeks and neck; the way the corner of his lips twitched whenever Nico said something stupid. 

Part of him attributed the hallucinations as trauma--that was his logical side speaking; but part of him felt so  _connected_ to them, like they were real. 

Like they were a past life, or maybe a future one. 

Part of Nico wished that the bombs he heard would one day hit the hospital. He didn't want to be in a world where nobody believed him--after all, every doctor around him was convinced he was delusional. 

After all, who on Earth would want to live in a place so full of hate? 

So when Nico closed his eyes, and let the cool night air hit his olive skin, the boy with the sunshine smile would appear in his dreams, taking his hand and leading him to a camp. They would kiss each other in his dreams. Nobody looked at them like they were crazy when they did that. If Nico took anything from those cursed dreams, it was the taste of that boy, and the way he would hold Nico like he was the world. 

His name was Will. 

He tasted like home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little short but!!! this is a pjo fic i have been DYING to push out to you guys so!! here's chapter one


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